{"id":235,"date":"2020-04-06T09:06:51","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T09:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/?p=235"},"modified":"2021-02-04T15:56:16","modified_gmt":"2021-02-04T15:56:16","slug":"your-writing-playlist-words-by-boyzone","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/2020\/04\/06\/your-writing-playlist-words-by-boyzone\/","title":{"rendered":"Your Writing Playlist: “Words” by Boyzone"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Your favourite mix of 90’s hits and writing tips is back and hopes you\u2019re all doing okay out there. This one goes out to all the writers who find that they just have too many words.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Photo by Green Chameleon<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s *only* words,\u201d croon Boyzone on their lovely 1996 cover of the Bee Gees classic<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s all very well for them to say, though, isn\u2019t it?!\nIt would be a \u2018brand new story\u2019 if they were only meant to write 6,000 words,\nfor their dissertation say, and then ended up with nearly 10,000 of them! Or if\nthey somehow had to cut 500 words out of their essay! It wouldn\u2019t be all linen\nsuits and chandeliers then, would it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No, it would be \u201cbut we did loads of research! It took\nus ages! We can\u2019t just cut it out!\u201d And \u201cbut what if we cut the wrong bits?!\u201d\nAnd \u201cbut we think it\u2019s all important!\u201d  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luckily, if Boyzone were to re-evaluate their rather\nblas\u00e9 attitude towards words and require assistance in these matters, we\u2019d be\nthere with these handy hints. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

First\nthing\u2019s first, try nibbling<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are two general approaches to getting rid of\nwords, Cutting, which we\u2019ll come to, involves bidding farewell to substantial\nportions of text \u2013 entire paragraphs or sections. If you\u2019re significantly over\nthe word limit, cutting probably can\u2019t be avoided. However, it\u2019s always worth\n\u2018nibbling\u2019 first to see if you can get rid of any unnecessary words. We\u2019re all\nguilty of using more words than we need to at times, and reading your work\naloud might be a good way of picking up on this. Have you said \u201cduring this\ntime period\u201d when you could just have said \u201cduring this time\u201d? Any places where\n\u201cprior to this?\u201d could be replaced to \u201cpreviously\u201d and that sort of thing?\nDeleting the odd unnecessary word here and there can add up and once you\u2019ve\ndone this, you\u2019ll have a clearer idea of how drastic your cuts will have to be.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cutting\nwords: it\u2019s not about you<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

 It\u2019s natural to\nget very attached to the words we write. We put a lot of work into them. It\u2019s\nnever a pretty scene at WDC HQ whenever we\u2019re asked to cut a paragraph from one\nof our blogposts, we can tell you! But as writers, we\u2019re not always the best\njudge of what\u2019s important because everything seemed important enough for us to\nwrite it down in the first place. We have to take a step back and think of our\nreaders. Sometimes, we need to write something \u2013 to develop an understanding of\na topic or to untangle an idea \u2013 but the reader doesn\u2019t need to read it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Need\nto know versus nice to know<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

To establish what\u2019s important for the reader, remind\nyourself what you are trying to tell them. What\u2019s the take-home message of your\ndissertation, for example? Or the main argument of your essay? What do you want\nthe reader to know, think, understand and\/or believe after reading your work?\nThe material that best contributes to this is \u201cneed to know\u201d for the reader and\nalso more likely to be critical \u2013 something that serves your argument rather\nthan merely delivers \u201cnice to know\u201d information. When we do a lot of reading\nand research, such as when we\u2019re writing a longer essay or dissertation, we\ntend to want to show this off. This can result in overwhelming our writing with\nfacts and description that don\u2019t contribute to the overall argument. Editing\nout these unnecessary facts will not only get the word count down, it will also\nopen up space for the analytical writing that will make your writing more\npersuasive. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A\nfew words on signposting<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Signposting words and phrases tell the reader what\nyou\u2019re doing and why, and help them following your argument. A lack of\nsignposting can cause the reader confusion. We can turn again to popular song\nto see what havoc a lack of signposting can wreak. It causes Dionne Warwick no\nend of bother in \u201cDo You Know the Way to San Jose?\u201d And let\u2019s not mention the\nstruggles poor old Tony Christie has in \u201cIs This the Way to Amarillo?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When \u2018nibbling\u2019 words, it can be tempting to just get\nrid of all the \u2018howevers\u2019 and \u2018additionallys\u2019 but proceed with caution: these\nwords could play a crucial role in conveying your argument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is also possible to \u2018over signpost\u2019. This can often\nhappen when you\u2019re writing a longer piece like a dissertation or a thesis. We\ncan have a tendency to start a  chapter\nby recapping the previous one \u2013 often because it\u2019s been a while since we wrote\nthat previous chapter so we need a reminder for our own purposes. But the\nreader\u2019s experience will be different. They will have just read the previous\nchapter \u2013 do they need a recap? A useful way of judging can be reading your\nwork all the way through as the reader would: how much of a recap do you feel\nthey might need at the beginning of new section or chapter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hope these tips have been useful but perhaps you have\ntricks of your own up your sleeve? If so, let us know in the comments or come\nand see us on Twitter (we\u2019re @NCL_WDC)! <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your favourite mix of 90’s hits and writing tips is back and hopes you\u2019re all doing okay out there. This one goes out to all the writers who find that they just have too many words. \u201cIt\u2019s *only* words,\u201d croon … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5886,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-style"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5886"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":238,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235\/revisions\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/academicskills\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}